Over and Over Again

By Connie H Deutsch  |   Submitted On January 22, 2015

  

I think almost everyone has wished at some time in their life for a do over of something.

President Bush probably still wishes he had a do over of invading Iraq in the misbegotten hope of finding weapons of mass destruction in that country. He'd probably still be in the White House for an unprecedented third term (after Roosevelt) if he hadn't gotten us into such a senseless war that cost us billions of dollars and way too many lost lives.

For the average person, the do overs probably center around the woulda, coulda, shoulda, variety on a personal level.

A man I knew would tell me the details of conversations he had and they always sounded so unlike the person I knew him to be that I started questioning his stories. When he would say that he told someone such and such, I would ask him if this is what he actually said, or is this what he wished he had said. There would always be this pregnant pause and then, in a much lower voice, he would say that it was what he wished he had said.

This is not uncommon. There are many people who tell a story that puts them in a more favorable light but the difference is that they realize what they are doing. The danger comes when the exaggerated story is told so frequently that the teller gets to believe his own fiction.

Of all the do overs, I think the one most frequently wished for is the one where you didn't say what you wanted to say and fervently wished you had said it.

Children experience this frequently. They are not old enough, big enough, or smart enough to grab that power for themselves so they live in a kind of Fantasyland imagining what they should have said and would have done if only they weren't so helpless.

This leads me to wonder if parents allowed their children to win some of the arguments, some of the time, more children would grow up with the self-confidence to express themselves more freely, thus nullifying the need for anger and hostility that seems to permeate so much of this society.

I think, as parents, it's our job to separate what the important issues are so that we still win the major arguments while letting our children win the less critical arguments with logic rather than with manipulation.

Connie H. Deutsch

Connie H. Deutsch is an internationally known business consultant and personal advisor who has a keen understanding of human nature and is a natural problem-solver.

Connie is the author of the books, "Whispers of the Soul," "A Slice of Life," "Whispers of the Soul for the Rest of Your Life," "From Where I'm Sitting," "View from the Sidelines," "Reaching for the Brass Ring of Life," "Purple Days and Starry Nights," "Here and There," "And That's How it Goes," and "The Counseling Effect." Her website: http://www.conniehdeutsch.com/

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